Veto Tuesday lunch links

Here’s something to spur a little dyspepsia on the first day of a short work week: The General Assembly is back in Raleigh! Yes, just six weeks or so after blowing town, the honorables are back for what will apparently be a two-day veto session. In case you’ve forgotten, the state Constitution (Article II, Section 22) requires an affirmative vote of three-fifths of those present and voting to override a gubernatorial veto and, at this point, it looks very much as if both the House and Senate will produce margins of this amount or greater on both bills at issue. In other words, it would appear that Governor McCrory’s September is about to get off to a start very much consistent with his extremely lousy August – a month so bad that it prompted his hometown newspaper to question his truthfulness.

And speaking of important official events in Raleigh today, the State Board of Elections will convene at 1:00 to take up an appeal of a candidate challenge to Montravias King from Pasquotank County. Click here to watch the live feed from WRAL. The Board will also consider the appeals for one-stop alternate plans for 2013 municipal elections in Watauga and Pitt counties. Students and civic groups including NCPIRG, Common Cause, Ignite NC, NCSU Student Power Union, Democracy NC and Rock the Vote will be on hand to call on the Board to reverse recent decisions by local county boards of elections that make it harder for young people to vote.

And speaking of “must see” video, Talking Points Memo has a an entertaining story about John McCain slamming some obnoxious Fox Noise hosts over the weekend for their not-so-thinly-veiled anti-Islamic cracks. Good for McCain.

And speaking of purveyors of right-wing propaganda like Fox Noise, the Pope-Civitas Institute has scheduled a strange little event for September 19 – a “forum” on the controversial education standards known as “Common Core.” As you probably know, the Common Core has met with opposition from both right and left — the latter for concerns about even more destructive standardized testing and the outsized influence of giant corporations and the former because of mostly kooky conspiracy theories. Given this backdrop, it’s probably apt that the Civitas event (which will feature the Lt. Governor Dan “Faith Driven Consumer” Forest and national Heritage Foundation boss, Jim DeMint) will take place behind closed doors with an “invitation only” audience.

And finally, speaking of issues in which we could use a little less completely unfettered capitalism and a significantly greater level of for-the-common-good cooperation between government and the for-profit sector, check out this Labor Day essay by one the nation’s best and most insightful economists, Dean Baker. In it, Baker explains how better government and corporate workplace policies have helped German workers live freer, healthier and happier lives in recent decades than their American counterparts.